AI may have been the headline at INSIGHT 2026, but data was the real story.
For the last few years, the focus has been on models and GPUs. Those investments remain important, but many organizations are discovering that AI is only as good as the data behind it.
Enterprise data is often fragmented across on-premises environments, cloud platforms, and business applications. It's difficult to govern, expensive to move, and challenging to make available to AI at scale. As a result, data is becoming the primary bottleneck to enterprise AI adoption.
That's why the announcements at NetApp INSIGHT 2026 were noteworthy. Whether the discussion was AI infrastructure, data management, hybrid cloud, cyber resilience, or Azure NetApp Files, the common theme was helping organizations unlock more value from their data.
NetApp Novus highlighted the growing need for AI-optimized infrastructure that can deliver data fast enough to keep increasingly expensive GPU environments productive. The AI Data Engine (AIDE) addressed a related challenge: how to make trusted enterprise data available to AI systems without creating unnecessary copies that add cost, risk, and complexity.
Novus diagram:
For Microsoft customers, these announcements offer a glimpse into where enterprise AI is heading. Future innovations built on NetApp technology have the potential to help Azure customers access, govern, and activate data more efficiently as AI workloads continue to grow.
Azure NetApp Files Delivers Practical Value for Azure Customers
At the same time, Microsoft delivered practical capabilities Azure NetApp Files customers can use today. New support for Microsoft Entra Kerberos simplifies identity management for SMB workloads. Large Volume Breakthrough Mode brings massive scale and throughput for AI, HPC, and analytics workloads. Cool Access improvements help customers reduce storage costs while maintaining performance.
Simpler Identity Management
Azure NetApp Files now supports Microsoft Entra Kerberos authentication for SMB volumes, reducing reliance on traditional Active Directory domain controllers for workloads such as Azure Virtual Desktop, FSLogix profiles, enterprise file shares, and Windows applications.
For IT leaders, the benefit is straightforward: a simpler identity architecture, lower operational overhead, and fewer infrastructure components to deploy, secure, and maintain.
How it works:
Greater Scale for AI and Data-Intensive Workloads
Large Volume Breakthrough Mode is now generally available, delivering up to 80 GiB/s throughput and volumes up to 2 PiB.
Organizations running AI, HPC, EDA, and large-scale analytics workloads can consolidate more data into fewer volumes, simplify management, and achieve the performance needed for their most demanding workloads.
Better Economics for Growing Data Estates
New Cool Access enhancements help customers reduce storage costs while maintaining performance. Azure NetApp Files now dynamically adjusts throughput based on the mix of hot and cool data, reducing complexity while lowering cold-data storage costs by up to 75%.
For organizations managing rapidly growing datasets, this provides a more efficient balance of cost and performance.
Why It Matters
Together, these innovations help Azure customers get more value from their data with simpler operations, higher performance, and better economics.
Whether the goal is AI readiness, cloud modernization, enterprise file services, or cost optimization, the message from INSIGHT 2026 was clear: organizations that remove barriers between data and innovation will move faster and get more from their Azure investments.
The larger lesson from INSIGHT is that organizations that remove barriers between their data and AI initiatives will move faster than those that don't.
AI may capture the attention, but data will determine the outcome.
Continue to read more:
Microsoft Entra Kerberos for Azure NetApp Files Is in Public Preview
More EDA Job Sets per Volume: Azure NetApp Files Raises the Performance Bar
